Underwear pervert comics?

I don't know if Rym and Scott's analysis of the graphics novel/comic thing is accurate. Mostly because I think that the majority of manga readers don't read American comic books. The two groups I feel are typically mutually exclusive, rather then substitutes for one another. So people aren't buying manga instead of superhero comics, there are just more people buying manga then superhero comics, and superhero comics still have the same sized audience.

I do agree that there are way too many superhero books, it's really one of the things I really don't like about the American comic industry, aside from the fact that there are like 18 different comics for major characters, and that they can't keep the history of characters correct, and that very rarely do you get to see one author and/or artist stay with a book for very long.

But anyway, regardless I do want to say that although I don't read many comics there are 2 I read (well one ended) that I think are really good, and have risen above the generic crappiness (for the most part.) And those are the newest Batgirl (at least the first half or so before the original writer left) and Ultimate Spider-man (which still has the original writer/artist team.)

Comments

I have a new hypothesis regarding why superhero comics seem to suck so bad. I thought of it this morning, but I want to give it the run around.

In any medium, 90% of everything sucks. 90% of movies suck. 90% of tv sucks. 90% of comics suck. 90% of everything sucks. Take webcomics as an example. Anyone who wants to make a webcomic can make one, and nobody can stop them. Thus, every webcomic gets made, even the crappy ones. Because we can see all of the webcomics, we can see that most of them suck. When it comes to TV and movies, not all of them get made, but enough of them get made for us to see the crap. As long as there are more resources to publish works of art in a particular medium than there are good works of art in that medium, crap will become visible.

Pretend there's a world in which one hundred books were written every year. Let's say ten of those books each year are awesome, and ninety suck. Now let's say that each year they can only publish ten books. Imagine how books would be treated in a world where only ten amazing books are published each year. Imagine the same world where all one hundred books are published every year, the ten good ones and the ninety crappy ones. How would the society in that world view books as a medium in either scenario?

When it comes to superhero comics we have this illusion going on. The US comic market is dominated by underwear perverts. Every month there are thousands of new pages worth of underwear pervertitude on the shelves. More superhero comics are published than good ones are written. Therefore, we see lots of crappy superhero comics get published.

When it comes to independent comics in the US, most of them don't get made. Because superheros are so dominant, maybe less than 20% of independent comics actually get properly published. The ones that do are mostly the best of the best. 90% of independent non-superhero comics are still crap. Most of the good ones get published, and only a few of the bad ones get published. Manga has the same story. There is a lot of manga in Japan, and most of it sucks. But the best manga is usually chosen to get published in English first. So because fewer independent comics and manga are published, we don't get to see as much of the crappy indpendent comics and manga.

So in the US you have available to you the best manga, the best independent comics and all of the superhero comics. When you have this situation it makes the superhero comics look crappy. It doesn't help that in the early 1990s, when the collector mentality was at it's peak, they flooded the market with crappy underwear pervert books. This is why it appears that superhero comics as a genre, suck. In other genres of graphic literature only the good stuff is being published. In the superhero genre the good stuff and the bad stuff are both being published.

I imagine two solutions to this scenario. The first solution is to publish all the crap manga and crap independent comics. I think you can see why that solution is not a good one. The good solution is to stop publishing the crap superhero comics. Imagine if the only superhero comics that got published were really good ones like Watchmen, Marvels or Dark Night Returns. Superhero comics would be this amazing thing held in very high regard. No longer would they be viewed as shallow trash for kids and nerds. In fact, if the only comics we published were the best of the best, it would give society a completely different oulook on the medium. The comic medium might be able to get the respect it deserves from the public at large if they only published the really good superhero books.

Of course, this is just a working hypothesis. What do I know from things that make sense?

I think that the majority of manga readers don't read American comic books.

While this is mostly true for the older fans, I have seen more and more younger fans getting into both (or being into one, then the other). I have spoken with my local comic guy about this and he said that it is very interesting, you have the parents come in with their kids. Mom/Dad gets the comics, kids get the manga. Then after a while they are buying things as groups (manga and comics both). That is cool.

I do agree that there are way too many superhero books, it's really one of the things I really don't like about the American comic industry, aside from the fact that there are like 18 different comics for major characters, and that they can't keep the history of characters correct, and that very rarely do you get to see one author and/or artist stay with a book for very long.

You think it's bad now you should have seen about 10 -15 years ago. Dear god, spiderman alone had something like 8 or 9 different books. Not only that there were 4 different JLA books, 3 different Green Lantern books, 2 Fantastic Four, 8 X books, etc. Now I know that things now aren't really different but look at it this way. The American comic industry is like Capcom. They will churn out tons of Megaman games so that they can make a profit. That's it. They are churning out book after crappy book so that they can turn an easy profit. All they need to do is make sure one or two characters that the comic nerds grew up with are there and there they go. Also if a book is successful then the creative staff will stay on for a while, but let's face it. If you were an artist would you want to draw the same thing over and over and over again for years?

No. That's why instead of writing a series that never ends, I would make something that has a distinct beginning middle and end, like most manga.

I completely agree. But in America the artists don't own the work like they do in Japan (or have the same level of vested interest in it succeeding). All the property is owned by a corporation who's sole goal is to keep milking the thing.

As an artist, I wouldn't mind drawing the same thing over and over again, but only if it were something that I helped create, and I felt passionate about. I couldn't see myself jumping into drawing batman or superman, since I don't have any passion and its not my own.

I think that's why even though there are long manga series' they do eventually end, but the good ones continue to evolve and build on themselves to stay fresh and good (ie: One Piece.)

But back to Apreche's long post, I agree with you that things would be better if only that 10% of good comics were only what were published. Unfortunately DC and Marvel has basically found their model of doing business where as long as they stick to doing things a certin way they will be ok finacially. They aren't going to take the step to try and go back to how it was in "The Golden Age" when they were making comics about tons of different genres.

I think the only way to get what you're talking about is if someone started their own company, or maybe took over a company like Dark Horse, and specifically aimed to only produce good stuff, and to try and make it more legit. Not in making it "mainstream" but making the stream come to it.

As far as any underwear pervert comics go, I'd suggest anything by Alan Moore (aka the man who wrote the Watchmen). So much of his stuff is brilliant, especially runs like Promethea (the one I'm reading right now) with its experimental art style and story telling techniques. Though I haven't read the final issue yet, I'm told the panels can be read in many different orders, including one made by detatching the pages and peicing them together into a two-sided poster. But really, any of his work, both inside and outside DC is gold.

I think the reason why "underwear pervert comics" (and until I heard the latest episode of the show, I'd never heard that term used before) aren't doing so well is because of the mainstream popularity of japanese made properties in general. It used to be that if you wanted to buy anything anime related you'd have to find it on the internet, or go to some specialty store in a big city. And only a few TV stations would have any anime TV shows. Now you can't turn on the TV without finding anime or something anime influenced. And even my local Target has a few anime movies for sale. I usually go to my local Borders bookstore to get my manga, and now there's a large section dedicated to just that. Where as in the same store, the "traditional" comics are limited to a metal rack that rotates that hold a few series with some recognizable characters, but nothing really new or interesting.

Where as in the same store, the "traditional" comics are limited to a metal rack that rotates that hold a few series with some recognizable characters, but nothing really new or interesting.

I think you have your causality backwards. Underwear pervert comics aren't losing popularity because Japanese stuff is stealing the market share. The people who are buying manga are not being stolen away from superhero comics. Superhero comics are not unpopular because of less shelf space, they get less shelf space because they are unpopular.

Son of a bitch! my long post was lost again! (i really should just write these in another program first!)

Anyway, cut the two pages of discussion I typed and lost and I'll get to the point..

Get off your Ivory Fucking Tower. If you don't like it don't read it. If enough people buy it to keep it around more power to them. Wait till your American comic loving friend finds a gem and lets you read it. I know Apreche and I find lots of good comics because we let each other know when we found something good. Let the marketplace decide what is good or bad. Because who do you want to judge what is crappy? The masses? if that was the case all that TV would be is Survivor and Law and order..... Oh wait that's what's happened!

Anyhow, that chart is sorta off only because since comics are also sold in single issues those don't get counted so all collectors and single issue comic book fans are not counted. Also Manga is significantly cheaper.

I had a lot more rambling but I don't feel like freaking rewriting at this time.

I think that the reason that Marvel/DC and the underwear pervert comics are doing so bad is that they dont relate to the youths like manga does. I think they need to start doing more anime type artwork (or even Jim Lee style) and more Ultimate Spider-man type books.

I don't know if it's that they connect with teens more, granted there are a lot of manga based around teenagers, but I think it's that manga are more emotionally driven while superhero stuff is more story driven.

Son of a bitch! my long post was lost again! (i really should just write these in another program first!)

Anyway, cut the two pages of discussion I typed and lost and I'll get to the point..

Get off your Ivory Fucking Tower. If you don't like it don't read it. If enough people buy it to keep it around more power to them. Wait till your American comic loving friend finds a gem and lets you read it. I know Apreche and I find lots of good comics because we let each other know when we found something good. Let the marketplace decide what is good or bad. Because who do you want to judge what is crappy? The masses? if that was the case all that TV would be is Survivor and Law and order..... Oh wait that's what's happened!

Anyhow, that chart is sorta off only because since comics are also sold in single issues those don't get counted so all collectors and single issue comic book fans are not counted. Also Manga is significantly cheaper.

I had a lot more rambling but I don't feel like freaking rewriting at this time.

Whoa there. I think you totally misunderstand what I'm aiming at here. We both want the market to decide which comics stick around and which do not. What I'm saying is that the US comic industry is held in check by a monopoly (Diamond) and is not being affected by market forces properly. They aren't trying to make the best comics possible. They aren't trying to make more money through comics. They are just trying to carry on a dying tradition of underwear perverts while also doing research and development for profitable Hollywood movies. Everyone other than superhero fanboys is made to suffer. Comics could be a medium of art which brings joy to all people, but instead stupid companies are forcing the medium to only entertain an ever-shrinking niche.

Also, you seem to have a problem losing long posts that nobody else has a problem with. I think your technology skills might need some polishing. Pwn!

well, for some crappy reason firefox let me have a post comment box but logged me out of the message board! so when I submitted the rant by hitting submitt it then gave me an error saying that I didn't have permission to post a comment. so when I went back my comment was gone.

Anyhow, I think what we are missing is that Diamond is not perventing marvel from coming out with a non superhero comic book. There are plenty of these out there already under these studio's alt labels like Vertigo, Wildstorm and smaller studios like Dark Horse and Devil's due. Truely the only genre that is nearly completely missing are genre's that target women.

Lets look at the list for 9/7/06 (I realized that this week apparently sucks for comics after I looked at the following week of 8/30/06 and saw it was twice as big and had tons more publishers.. However I don't have the time to redo the list but I encourage you to look at that week for a even better ratio of superhero/nonsuperhero comics)

Marvel 17 releases..
All superhero.. Well it is Marvel and they got it down

Assorted. 16 releases
I can't find a superhero book within..

So...out of 72 (since I don't know what to call some of these books I'll remove them from the analysis. I'll take image and unknowns out leaving 54 remaining) comics coming out this week..
so we have 24 non superhero books and 30 superhero books... Not a horrorific ratio..

If you look at the list for 8/30/06 it's even more apparent (appears the week of labor day is a light comic week, that weeks list is crazy big).

I feel it's the fact that they still release single issues and not Shinen jump style mags. Also they are still burdened with a collectors mentality when the industry seems to have abandoned the collector's mentality that idea long ago (since they now issue reprints)

Comics could be a medium of art which brings joy to all people, but instead stupid companies are forcing the medium to only entertain an ever-shrinking niche.

So what you really want is one company to pull a Nintendo... And develop a Blue ocean strategy to expand the market? while the others fight for the standard market share.

That would be ok, I guess. What I really want is for comic publishers to actually take a risk and try to make comics a big important artistic medium like movies, tv, music and video games are. They seem to be satisfied letting the medium slowly decline and using it only for R+D. If things continue at the current pace comics will eventually end up like painting and sculpture. It will be an artistic medium that is relegated to museums.

Also, try doing the same game of counting the hero and non-hero books for an entire month. You will see a much different story. Also, sometimes it's hard to categorize a book as being "capes" or not. Ex-Machina sort of falls in this grey area of half-capeness.

For me, it's simply that the culture around the majority of underwear pervert comics seems to be exclusive, antisocial, and a little creepy. My experiences at Philly Wizard World only confirmed this.

There are good comics, but they're ignored by the majority of underwear pervert fans who only read underwear pervert comics. There's a big different between someone who likes Batman AND Ex Machina, and someone who buys every single Batman-related comic every month and has a bust of Batman under his Batman poster.

I'm not saying all underwear pervert fans are like this, but the cool ones definitely seem to be the minority. While there are manga fans who delve into similarly obsessive depths, I tend to find them much more tolerable, and at least they'll be social at a con.

There is good manga. There are good comics. There are good comics that involve characters that could be considered "super heros." Then, there are underwear perverts.

To say that comic book people are "Antisocial" is a little harsh. There are extremist in every type of culture, and genre. There are those people who really like that Naruto thing who where little pieces of metal on their heads. Some of these people even go as far as to make fun of me for not knowing why they would wear such a thing. I will say that "Fan Boys" are really creepy, but that is all fan boys. A horror "Fan Boy" could be really creepy, and so could a Heavy Metal "Fan Boy". I think that regardless of what medium the "Fan Boy" is a fan of, he is going to be creepy.

Oh, there are scary fans of just about everything. You can't deny, however, that there is by and large a huge difference between comic culture and anime culture. Go to an anime convention, and the majority of people there are very social. They're often weird, funny, loud, and annoying, but they're very social. Strangers will strike up random conversations with anyone.

Comic cons are much quieter affairs. Hardly anyone talked, and woe betide anyone who tried to strike up conversation with a stranger in line. If you haven't, listen to our experiences from Philly Wizard World. Not only would no one consent to an interview, but even without the microphone visible people seemed almost startled if I so much as said "hello" to them. It was a large, anti-social, quiet convention.

They're two completely different cultures: Anime is dependant on passing on what you find (fansubs, for example), while comics culture is one of coveting, hoarding. One group is social, the other antisocial. It all stems from that dichotomy, IMHO.

I shall try to go to an Anime con once I get back State Side. However, I should have probley watched an Anime and read a Manga. So any sugestions? I will not be back in the states for almost another year.

A few months ago the blog BoingBoing found out that the terms superhero and super-hero have been tradmearked by Marvel and DC since the 70's. As a result they decided to say underwear pervert instead of super-hero. We have joined them.

To start off, I'm a bigger fan of anime than I am of American comics, but I read plenty of stuff, both superhero and non-superhero.

Comic cons are much quieter affairs. Hardly anyone talked, and woe betide anyone who tried to strike up conversation with a stranger in line.

Funny, this was exactly my experience at Anime Expo. After 3 Katsucons and 3 Otakons, it was a serious shock that so many people could be so quiet and unenthusiastic about anime, and yet go to a convention. You guys sound like you're eager to have your preconceptions about comics fans confirmed.

I'll grant you that there are too many superhero books, and many of them have mediocre or spotty writing. Quite frequently, both Marvel and DC will put out unique books that get canned after a year despite great reviews through word-of-mouth. The fact remains that a crappy issue of X-Men will sell better than a spectacular issue of some original creator-owned indie comic; that's really not the publisher's fault. Companies aren't out It's also disingenuous to paint the picture that American comics are all superheroes when the number of quality indie books is actually very high. Moreover, there are good superhero comics too... Why characterize the whole genre by the crap?

And given your dislike of mediocre superhero comics that sell well (perfectly understandable), I'm surprised that you'd be happy that Naruto and Megatokyo are among the top sellers. Whether or not you're a fan, MT's pacing and storytelling aren't really top-notch, and Naruto is simply cut from the same cloth that DBZ and every other generic shounen manga is. It sounds like you're manga fanboys so happy to hate on comics, you don't really care that it's simply Japanese crap beating out the American crap.

Comics graphic novels don't sell in the quantities that manga do because they tend to come out much, much slower and are priced at higher price points, typically. Certainly, the comics audience is starting to stagnate, but this is mostly due to a failure to bring in new readers, rather than American comics being bad as a whole. All of this, however, glosses over the fact that comics are sold as monthly issues, and the majority of comics readers buy these singles rather than the graphic novel compilations that come out 3-4 months later. But please, don't let facts like this get in the way of you guys talking like you're an authority on something you don't really know a lot about.

Your podcast is egotistical and self-congratulatory at best, and trolling at worst. I don't really plan on listening in the future. You're really full of yourselves, and seem to be more interested in stroking your own egoes than getting into fandom. For everyone else who's interested in comics, check out the Comic Geek Speak podcast. To contrast their attitude, they don't know much about manga, but have invited readers to make recommendations, which they read and review. They don't mind saying they don't like something, but on the whole, I was refreshed that a podcast could be so open-minded about other fandoms, and focus on the positive.

You can call this hatemail or show feedback, but if you've gotten this popular operating this way, I can't imagine my post is going to be an incentive to change.